Author - Jerry Paxton

Unity 4.0 Released

2012/11/14
Jerry Paxton
News, Special Interest News, Tech News

San Francisco – November 14, 2012 – Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity multi-platform engine and development tools, is proud to announce Unity 4.0 is now available for download. Unity 4, announced in June, will consist of a series of updates designed to improve the product through an extensive improvement of existing tech and the rollout of new features.

The first in a series of updates for Unity 4, this version includes significant additions such as DirectX 11 support and Mecanim animation tools. In addition users will have access to a Linux deployment preview and the Adobe® Flash® Player deployment add-on.

“Unity 4 will see the addition of an incredible number of new, highly advanced, features and continuous improvement across the tech to be released in smaller, faster increments than Unity has seen in the past,” said David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “It’s an exciting time for Unity and the 4.0 release marks the beginning of a great new era for our technology.”

Mecanim – Stunning Character Animation
Mecanim, Unity’s powerful and innovative animation technology, is setting new industry standards for tools in integrated development environments allowing the creation of complex state machines, blend trees, IK rigging, and auto retarget animations to characters of different sizes and shapes, all inside of the Unity editor. Developers will find a sizeable selection of retargetable animations available in the Unity Asset Store: http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/.

DirectX 11
With the ability to take advantage of full DirectX 11 support, including shader model 5, tessellation for smoother models and environments in game worlds, and compute shaders for advanced GPU computation, Unity 4.0 empowers developers. DirectX 11 support development was aided by development of the Butterfly Effect demo: http://unity3d.com/promo/butterfly/.

High-end Visual Capabilities for All Platforms
Unity 4.0 also features real-time shadows on mobile, skinned mesh instancing, the ability to use normal maps when baking lightmaps, and a refined GPU profiler. It’s easy to make extremely high-end visuals that scale across the best of what’s available on modern PCs and the most advanced mobile graphics chips.

Adobe Flash Player Add-on
The Adobe Flash Player deployment add-on will empower developers to publish their new and existing titles to one of the world’s most ubiquitous gaming platforms on the web. With the wealth of incredible features in the 4.0 release, Unity is the most powerful development pipeline for creating high quality 2D and 3D content for Adobe Flash Player. The add-on is now available for sale in the Unity store: https://store.unity3d.com/.

Linux Publishing Preview
Unity 4.0 will also include a preview of a new deployment option to publish games to Desktop Linux, clearing a path for the Unity community to bring exciting new content to the PC market’s most voracious indie gamers. Desktop Linux standalone publishing will be available for all Unity 4 users at no additional cost.

Unity 4 introduces many additional features and improvements, including:

  • Shuriken particle system supports external forces, bent normals, automatic culling, and environmental collisions
  • 3D texture support
  • Navigation: dynamic obstacles and avoidance priority
  • Major optimizations in GUI performance and memory usage
  • Dynamic fonts on all platforms with HTML-like markup
  • Remote Unity Web Player debugging
  • New Project Window workflows
  • Iterative lightmap baking
  • Refined component-based workflows
  • Extensible inspectors for custom classes
  • Improved Cubemap import pipeline
  • Geometry data improvements for huge memory and performance savings
  • Meshes can be constructed from non-triangle geometry – render points & lines efficiently

Unity 4 and the Adobe Flash Player add-on for Unity are now available for purchase at the Unity store (https://store.unity3d.com/).

Star Citizen Last Push for Crowd Funding and Video

2012/11/13
Jerry Paxton
News, Trailers / Videos, Windows PC News

Chris Roberts is making his final push for crowd funding of his upcoming Star Citizen – his return to space combat gaming. The game has already raised over $3 million dollars and looks to be doing very well. There are only six days left in the crowd funding program on Kickstarter and on the Roberts Space Industries site. Let’s help make this awesome game possible. In celebration of this final push, Roberts Space Industries has released a cool new video of player wingmen obeying formation commands and a tongue-in-cheek video of Roberts himself addressing the fans. Check it out!

Videos

Cities in Motion: London Announced

2012/11/13
Jerry Paxton
News, Screenshots / Photos, Windows PC News

NEW YORK – November 13, 2012 – Tally Ho Chaps! Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order are giving Great Britain’s capital the royal treatment as they have today announced Cities in Motion: London, a brand new addition to the critically-acclaimed mass transport simulation Cities in Motion.

London, one of the world’s busiest cities, requires an effective and substantial transport system capable of meeting the high demand of the millions of commuters going about their daily business and tourists visiting its famous attractions alike. Introducing three new scenarios, new vehicles including the famous London Underground and world-renowned landmarks such as Tower Bridge, players will put their civic planning prowess to the test as they attempt to serve the transport needs of the great metropolis.

From navigating the narrow, meandering streets with the iconic red buses to crossing the banks of the mighty Thames, Cities in Motion: London provides a new set of challenges and obstacles for the savvy urban planner to overcome.

Cities in Motion: London will release November 20th 2012 on digital download portals for $4.99/€4.99/£3.99.

Features

  • 3 new scenarios
  • 5 new vehicles including red double-decker buses and the London Underground
  • Famous London landmarks such as The London Eye, the Gherkin and Westminster Abby

Screenshots

Need for Speed Most Wanted Demo Out

2012/11/13
Jerry Paxton
News, Windows PC News, Xbox 360 News

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Nov. 13, 2012 – Have you been itching to make trouble in the open world, action racing game everyone is talking about? Now you can. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) and Criterion Games today released a single-player demo for Need for Speed™ Most Wanted, the recently launched and critically acclaimed reimagining of the bestselling title in Need for Speed history. Need for Speed Most Wanted has generated excitement and enthusiasm from players and press around the world.  Since launching on October 30, the game has received numerous press accolades including a perfect 5/5 score from UK’s The Guardian, and 9/10 scores from IGN, Game Informer and the UK’s Edge Magazine. The demo, which is available now for free download on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live® (LINK), unleashes gamers into the connected, open world of Fairhaven City where they race, chase and explore their way to become Most Wanted amongst their friends.

The Most Wanted demo starts players behind the wheel of one of the game’s most recognizable, rides: the Aston Martin V12 Vantage. Players can also jack into three additional cars placed in different areas of Fairhaven– the Porsche 911 Carrera S, the Audi R8 GT Spyder and the Ford Focus RS500 – if you can find it, you can drive it. Each vehicle has its own unique races, challenges and mods to unlock. Autolog 2 puts social competition at the heart of the experience by tracking and comparing everything players do against their friends and offering up gameplay recommendations and challenges throughout the open world as a result. If there’s something to do, there’s someone to beat – from achieving the best time in a race to the fastest speed through a speed camera. Players are constantly blazing a trail of high scores not only in their game, but in their friend’s games as well. How can you tell which friend has the furthest jump through a billboard? Autolog 2 puts their face on it. New Most Wanted players can achieve up to 50,000 Speed Points in the demo – all of which will carry over into the full game, giving players a flying head start to topping the Most Wanted list.

Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 Gaming Keyboard Review

2012/11/13
Jerry Paxton
News, Peripheral Review, Reviews

When we looked at the Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 Gaming Keyboard, the thing that stuck with me was its high price point. It seems that Mad Catz was thinking about this too as they released the little brother to that keyboard, the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 model. Now that I have tried that unit out, I am in a position to compare the two of them so you don’t have to! Your wallets are welcome.

In looks alone, the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 and 7 keyboards are very similar: each features a modular design with gunmetal colored, heavy plastic components. The lower-budget model can be configured in a similar fashion to its higher-end sibling, mixing and matching how you put the modules together. The biggest difference is the lack of the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7’s “Control Module with V.E.N.O.M. TFT-LCD Touchscreen”. Instead, Mad Catz has replaced it with the “Control Module with E.Y.E. OLED Display”. This unit is not as “whiz-bang” as the touchscreen but still VERY useful for your gaming endeavors. You will not, however, find the extra swap-able keys in your box like you do with the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7. I loved the rubberized feel of those and miss them on this keyboard.

The back-lighting is unchanged from the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7, featuring 16 million RGB eye-pleasing color combinations. In fact, this keyboard has a lot of macro capability as well as some nifty options for timers and whatnot that the E.Y.E. OLED can display. For most of the configuration of the keyboard, however, you will be relying on Mad Catz Sentinel control software instead of the touchscreen found on the more expensive model. An interesting change in the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 is that its wrist rest is a lot more comfortable than the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7’s. It is nice and squishy – very comfy for long play periods. Unfortunately, the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 does not feature the built in USB ports of the higher-priced S.T.R.I.K.E. 7.

In play-testing, the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 performed very well, and I couldn’t tell a difference between the key presses of either model (they are, in fact, the same keyboard keys, etc). The S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 took all the sessions of Skyrim, Dead Island, and even Call of Duty: Black Ops II (our preview build) that I could throw at it. In terms of sheer function, either model does a great job.

Overall, the Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 Gaming Keyboard is an excellent choice for gamers looking to get a lot of features and performance from a keyboard. My biggest concern with the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 is its price point – if you are already into a keyboard for $199 dollars, why not go “all-in” and get the upgraded model for an extra $100 dollars? That being said, if the touchscreen isn’t something you care about or you simply can’t wait to save up the extra dough, you will be very happy with the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5.

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Pros

  • $100 dollars cheaper than the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7
  • Comfortable wrist rest
  • Great performance

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Cons

  • At $199 dollars, it is still very pricey
  • No USB pass-through ports

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Images

Guardians of Middle-earth Release Date

2012/11/09
Jerry Paxton
News, PlayStation 3 News, Xbox 360 News

November 9, 2012 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Monolith Productions today revealed that Guardians of Middle-earth will be available Dec. 5, 2012worldwide via download on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The key art for Xbox LIVE® has also been revealed. Guardians of Middle-earth was previously confirmed for release on PlayStation®Network on Dec. 4, 2012.

With more than 20 Guardian characters and two maps available for unparalleled competitive play at launch, Guardians of Middle-earth is a valuable buy at $14.99 on PlayStation Network, and for 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360.  A separate Season Pass can be purchased for just $14.99 more, or 1200 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360, and provides discounted access to a significant amount of additional game content to be released in the future, including Guardian characters, map skins and a new gameplay mode. The game and the Season Pass are available for bundled purchase* in select retail stores across North America for a price of $29.99 beginning December 4.

New Key Art

 

Kenny Loggins and Green Day Coming to Rock Band

2012/11/09
Jerry Paxton
News, PlayStation 3 News, Xbox 360 News
Cambridge, Mass. – November 9th, 2012 – Harmonix today announced that two tracks from Kenny Loggins, along with a handful of Green Day songs – including the full albums21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot, and Dookie  – are headed to the Rock Band™Music Store of downloadable content for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Wii™.Rock Band provides the deepest and best selection of artists, songs and albums through the Rock Band music platform, which features more than 1,400 artists and more than 3,500* tracks via disc and download purchase (complete list of tracks atwww.rockband.com/songs). Rock Band’s gigantic music library dwarfs that of any other rhythm video game on the market. More than 100 million songs have been sold through the Rock Band Music Store since its launch on Nov. 20, 2007.

Tracks downloaded from the Rock Band Music Store are compatible with the award-winning full-band Rock Band 3 experience, as well as the controller-based rhythm-action title, Rock Band Blitz, available now on PlayStation®Network and Xbox LIVE® Arcade!

Rock Band DLC Additions for Xbox 360, PlayStation®3 system and Wii™

On November 13th, two soundtrack classics from singer songwriter Kenny Loggins will come to the Rock Band Music Store! “I’m Alright,” the theme to the 1980 filmCaddyshack, and “Footloose,” from the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name, will be available!
                                                                                          
Additionally, tracks previously only available as part of the Green Day: Rock Band disc will be available for download from the Music Store! Over 40 Green Day tracks will be available as part of packs or singles, detailed below. And for the first time, Pro Guitar and Pro Bass upgrades will be available for two of those tracks – “American Idiot” and “When I Come Around”!

These tracks come on the day of release of the band’s latest record, Green Day ¡Dos!, the second of the three album trilogy entitled Green Day ¡Uno!, Green Day ¡Dos!, Green Day ¡Tré!.

Available on Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation®3 system (November 13th, 2012):

  • Kenny Loggins – “I’m Alright”
  • Kenny Loggins – “Footloose” O X
Price:
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points ™, 200 Wii Points™) per song
$0.99 USD (80 Microsoft Points™, 100 Wii Points™), £0.59 UK, €0.79 EU per song for eligible Pro Guitar/Pro Bass upgrade
“Green Day Pack 04”

  • Green Day – “Geek Stink Breath”
  • Green Day – “Nice Guys Finish Last”
  • Green Day – “Hitchin’ a Ride”

Price:                    
$5.49 USD, £2.49 UK, €3.99 EU (440 Microsoft Points™, 550 Wii Points™) for the “Green Day Pack 04”
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points ™, 200 Wii Points™) per song
 
Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown (Note: Songs available only as singles on Wii)

  •  “Song of the Century”
  •  “21st Century Breakdown”
  •  “Know Your Enemy”
  •  “¡Viva La Gloria!”
  •  “Before the Lobotomy”
  •  “Christian’s Inferno”
  •  “Last Night on Earth”
  •  “East Jesus Nowhere”
  •  “Peacemaker”
  •  “Last of the American Girls”
  •  “Murder City”
  •  “¿Viva La Gloria? (Little Girl)”
  •  “Restless Heart Syndrome”
  •  “Horseshoes and Handgrenades”
  •  “The Static Age”
  • “21 Guns”
  • “American Eulogy”
  • “See The Light”

Price:                    
$19.99 USD, £9.99 UK, €14.99 EU (1600 Microsoft Points™) for the “21st Century Breakdown (Album)”
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points ™, 200 Wii Points™) per song

Green Day – American Idiot

  • “American Idiot” X
  • “Jesus of Suburbia”
  • “Holiday”
  • “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
  • “Are We The Waiting/St. Jimmy”
  • “Give Me Novacaine/She’s A Rebel”
  • “Extraordinary Girl”
  • “Letterbomb”
  • “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
  • “Homecoming”
  • “Whatsername”

Price:                    
$17.99 USD, £8.99 UK, €13.49 EU (1440 Microsoft Points™, 1800 Wii Points™) for the “American Idiot (Album)”
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points ™, 200 Wii Points™) per song
$0.99 USD (80 Microsoft Points™, 100 Wii Points™), £0.59 UK, €0.79 EU per song for eligible Pro Guitar/Pro Bass upgrade

Green Day – Dookie

  • “Burnout”
  • “Having A Blast”
  • “Chump”
  • “Longview”
  • “Welcome To Paradise”
  • “Pulling Teeth”
  • “Basketcase”
  • “She”
  • “Sassafras Roots”
  • “When I Come Around” X
  • “Coming Clean”
  • “Emenius Sleepus”
  • “In The End”
  • “F.O.D.”

Price:                    
$19.99 USD, £9.99 UK, €14.99 EU (1600 Microsoft Points™, 2000 Wii Points™) for the “Dookie (Album)”
$1.99 USD, £.99 UK, €1.49 EU (160 Microsoft Points ™, 200 Wii Points™) per song
$0.99 USD (80 Microsoft Points™, 100 Wii Points™), £0.59 UK, €0.79 EU per song for eligible Pro Guitar/Pro Bass upgrade

(These tracks will be available in Europe on PlayStation®3 system November 14th)

Tracks marked with “X” will offer Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansions for $0.99 per song.

** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change. **
 
*Available on-disc, via download and disc export. Internet connection and export key purchase required. Wii™ Shop Channel has more than 1,500 song tracks available for purchase on the Rock Band platform on-disc, via song import, and download. Not applicable to Nintendo DS™.

Website Links:
For more information, please visit:

Rock Band Website